


Hoist By His Own Petard

by Ceres_Libera



Series: Unexpected [2]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceres_Libera/pseuds/Ceres_Libera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Bones resolved to stop cursing, a fill for Lindmere’s prompt on the Resolutions Flashfic Challenge at the LiveJournal community Jim_and_Bones. Cleaned up and fleshed out since the original posting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hoist By His Own Petard

**Author's Note:**

> *P.S. I freely admit that I find swearing toddlers hysterical. Damn it.

+

"Oh!" The exclamation was followed by a clatter and then a clearly stated, “Aww ... fuck me."

Leonard's hands, which had been occupied with counting medical supplies, halted entirely in their movement. As a matter of fact, his entire person froze before he slowly turned around to stare at the cherubic figure of his daughter. His _twenty-two months old_ daughter, dimpled and pig-tailed, wearing a top that had watermelon slices and lady bugs dancing on the hem, who had, until just moment, been sitting splay-legged on her steri-playpad on the floor of his office, very happily building a tower.

Joanna gave him an eight-tooth smile and brushed her dirty blonde bangs out of her big, bright eyes, just like the ones he saw in the mirror himself every morning, the ones he was currently sure could not be opened wider if he tried.

"Shit, Papa!" she announced, little hand waving over her toppled tower. "It fall down!" Her imprecise pronunciation made it sound like ‘faw’ – she was still having a bit of trouble with her L-sounds -- although she’d enunciated everything else, including the words she surely should _not_ have been using, quite clearly in her sweet little girl’s voice.

Her head snapped around at a movement at the door, and then she was scattering her other blocks across the floor and under his desk as she launched herself at the man leaning against the door jamb with a cat-who-swallowed-the-canary expression on his handsome face. "Daddy!"

"How is Daddy's Little Potty Mouth?" Jim asked, scooping their girl up and then tickling Joanna's round belly as she giggled.

 _Oh, fuck ME_ , Leonard thought unhappily.

"What's a potty mouth?" Joanna shrieked, pushing Jim's hands away and then wriggling in delight when they returned to tickle her.

Jim looked significantly over their daughter's head at Leonard. "Oh, I'm gonna let Papa explain that one," he chuckled, before he raised Joanna up over his head and swung her around, while sing-songing, "the whole month that he does aaallll the housework!"

 _Sideways,_ Leonard added mentally. He stared at Jim for a few minutes, no doubt scowling. His rat bastard of a husband hadn't put their baby up to cursing to win a bet, had he? It wasn't like he swore in front of their baby girl all the time, right?

+

 _It was the middle of gamma when he finally dragged himself back to their quarters, after an already long beta shift that saw him catching a flurry of activity courtesy of Engineering’s continuous need to tinker with shit that liked to blow up. He was too tired to scowl really, but goddamnit, he hated to miss spending time with his family – Jim had a habit of singing nonsense to Joanna, making a game out of cleaning up her room before they gave her a bath and put her to bed that was too goddamned adorable for words. He let himself into the back door of their quarters and went into Joanna’s room, hoping against hope that his baby girl was awake enough to give him a sleepy kiss, but she was out like a light, sprawled on her back looking for all the world just like her Daddy. He deactivated the shield at the cribside and bent down to kiss her and fix her covers, wishing her sweet dreams before he reactivated the safety controls and crept from her room into the main room of their quarters._

 _He supposed he did scowl a bit when his tired eyes found Jim laying with his feet tucked under the afghan on their couch, fast asleep. From the looks of him, he’d fought sleep as hard as their toddler did but finally crashed with his reading glasses perched uselessly on his nose, bare chest peeking out from under the PADD and between the lapels of his plush bathrobe. There went his notion of spending some quiet time with Jim decompressing before he had to put **him** to bed._

 _Leonard bent and carefully retrieved Jim’s glasses, pressing a kiss to his forehead and rubbing his cheek against Jim’s tousled hair while he roused with a groan._

 _“Jim baby,” he said in a low voice, “c’mon now and come to bed.”_

 _“Mmmm …” Jim said, with a smile, stretching. “She tried to stay up until you came home, Bones.”_

 _Leonard sighed. “I’m sure she did, darlin’,” he said sadly. “And I missed the ship-shape song two nights running.”_

 _Jim laughed, sitting up and swinging his feet down to the floor. “You mean the ‘shit-shape’ song, doncha, Bones?”_

 _“Jim,” Leonard reproved as he hauled him off the couch. “Don’t make fun of our baby’s language development.”_

 _“Bones!” Jim said, looking at him with a strange expression on his face as they entered their room. “You’re kidding, right? It’s not like her l’s and w’s.”_

 _“What’re you babbling about?” Leonard asked, pulling up the hems of his shirts._

 _“Bones –“ Jim said, disbelievingly. “She’s saying ‘shit’ on purpose.”_

 _“She is not,” Leonard countered. “It’s just a developmental phase where she’s confusing certain sounds.”_

 _“Bones!” Jim laughed. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Also, wrong. I’m telling you, it’s monkey-see, monkey-do, Bones. And I think we both know who the potty mouth in this marriage is.”_

 _Leonard pulled on his sleep pants and raised an eyebrow at Jim before he stalked into the head. "She's a sweet baby girl, not a simian," he said firmly, shaking his head, stopping at the door to add. "You're imagining things, Jim."_

 _Jim stuck his head around the door jamb. “Wanna bet?” he asked with a smile._

+

Damn him. Jim’s smiles got him into more trouble.

Still. Even if Joanna was swearing, there was nothing saying that it was down to _him_.

“All right, Joanna Leigh,” Jim said to Joanna, swinging her around one last time. “Time to get Papa’s office _ship shape_ ,” he sang, “before we go to the mess and eat our lunch.”

"Damn it, Jim!" Joanna cursed as Jim put her down on her play pad and pushed the box for her blocks over within her reach.

Leonard stared at Joanna in shock, then looked at Jim, "Well ... g-g-golly gosh!" he said finally.

Five minutes later, he picked up a confused Joanna from the floor and stomped out of his block-strewn office and right past a clearly scandalized Chapel.

And if he hoped that Jim fucking herniated something from laughing like a goddamned hyena, he kept it to himself.

For once.

Goddamnit.

 _Fin_


End file.
